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1. How do companies organize their ERP projects?

Based on our observations, there are three commonly used ways of installing ERP.

The Big BangIn this, the most ambitious and difficult of approaches to ERPimplementation, companies cast off all their legacy systems at once and install a singleERP system across the entire company. Though this method dominated early ERPimplementations, few companies dare to attempt it anymore because it calls for the entirecompany to mobilie and change at once. !ost of the ERP implementation horror stories

from the late "#$s warn us about companies that used this strategy.%etting everyone tocooperate and accept a new software system at the same time is a tremendous effort,largely because the new system will not have any advocates. &o one within the companyhas any e'perience using it, so no one is sure whether it will wor(. )lso, ERP inevitablyinvolves compromises. !any departments have computer systems that have been honedto match the ways they wor(. In most cases, ERP offers neither the range of functionalitynor the comfort of familiarity that a custom legacy system can offer. In many cases, thespeed of the new system may suffer because it is serving the entire company rather thana single department. ERP implementation re*uires a direct mandate from the +E.

Franchising strategyThis approach suits large or diverse companies that do not sharemany common processes across business units. Independent ERP systems are installedin each unit, while lin(ing common processes, such as financial boo((eeping, across the

enterprise. This has emerged as the most common way of implementing ERP. In mostcases, the business units each have their own -instances- of ERPthat is, a separatesystem and database. The systems lin( together only to share the information necessaryfor the corporation to get a performance big picture across all the business unitsbusiness unit revenues, for e'ample/, or for processes that don"t vary much frombusiness unit to business unit perhaps 0R benefits/. 1sually, these implementationsbegin with a demonstration or pilot installation in a particularly open2minded and patientbusiness unit where the core business of the corporation will not be disrupted ifsomething goes wrong. nce the pro3ect team gets the system up and running and wor(sout all the bugs, the team begins selling other units on ERP, using the firstimplementation as a (ind of in2house customer reference. Plan for this strategy to ta(e along time.

Slam dn!ERP dictates the process design in this method, where the focus is on 3usta few (ey processes, such as those contained in an ERP system"s financial module. Theslam dun( is generally for smaller companies e'pecting to grow into ERP. The goal hereis to get ERP up and running *uic(ly and to ditch the fancy reengineering in favor of theERP system"s -canned- processes. 4ew companies that have approached ERP this waycan claim much paybac( from the new system. !ost use it as an infrastructure to supportmore diligent installation efforts down the road. 5et many discover that a slammed2inERP system is little better than a legacy system because it doesn"t force employees tochange any of their old habits. In fact, doing the hard wor( of process reengineering afterthe system is in can be more challenging than if there had been no system at all becauseat that point few people in the company will have felt much benefit.

The Internet Business Frameworkprovides several integration technologies that enable

multi-level communication between different SAP systems or between SAP and non-SAPsoftware. According to your plans and projects you can choose from various technologies

using Idocs, !", #APIs, $%&' and different protocols to transmit, receive, change or

generate data.

Application Link Enabling (ALE) is a set of business processes and tools that allow applications

on different computer systems to be linked. The main objective is to distribute data from a mainsystem to a subsystem following certain rules. This is possible between different A! systems as

well as between A! and non"A! systems. The used technology is #doc messaging via t$%&.

TheSAP Business Connectoris a '' enabling technology based on webethods ''

#ntegration erver. #t allows you to integrate with $*+ via open and non proprietary technology.

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A! '& uses the #nternet as communication platform and ,L*-TL as data format. Thus itseamlessly integrates different #T architectures with A! systems. The A! 'usiness &onnector isa main part of the A! #nternet #nitiative.

The A! 'usiness bjects are an essential part of the 'usiness %ramework and the prere/uisites

for interoperability. A! 'usiness bjects cover a broad range of A!0s business data andprocesses and can be accessed using open1 stable and standardi2ed methods " BAPIs (BusinessApplication Programming Interfaces). They allow e3ternal or remote A! systems to accessbusiness objects by calling the respective methods. The A! 'usiness bjects and their 'A!#s

thus provide an object"oriented view of A! business functionality.

#f you need to take over data from your legacy system to an A! system it is advisable to use

our DX-orkbenc!. The 4,"5orkbench helps you map your data to $*+ and import them to thenew system using either 'A!# technology1 batch input or direct input.

SAP Business orkflo" provides the infrastructure and tools to allow business processes that

encompass more than one department or software component to be managed1 automated andanaly2ed as related entities across the entire company. Employees are integrated in theautomated processes1 eliminating the need to perform redundant1 manual functions.

5ith m#SAP$com %obile orkplace&A! as the leader in inter"enterprise software solutions

will take care that our customers can benefit from the trends of mobile computing. A! will

provide the architecture and the necessary solutions within myA!.com to fulfill customer needs.A! obile &omputing e3tends A!6s business solutions to users that did not have access to any

A! product so far. At the same time1 it will make people who are already users of myA!.commore fle3ible and more mobile. #t will take integrated business solutions to the ne3t level.

o A! obile Engine

o 78 things to know about A! mobile computing

TheSAP Internet 'ransaction Serer (I'S)converts A! $*+ screens into -TL format1

making it possible to access A! systems with user"friendly 5eb technology.

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